NOVEL NEXT Chapter 160: [160] Not What, But Who
Ashley lay perfectly still in her medical bed, letting the scholars believe she was unconscious. The pretense came easily—her body felt like it was held together with string and good intentions. But her mind remained sharp.
The golden fractures beneath her skin had faded to thin lines, barely visible unless light caught them at the right angle. But she could feel them—a network of broken pathways where her Guardian Covenant had once flowed. The scholars called it "cascade failure," as if she were a machine that had simply malfunctioned.
She preferred to think of it as evolution.
"The subject shows remarkable adaptation," Scholar Hadwin was saying to his colleague near the window. "Most Covenant failures result in permanent ability loss. But these fractures seem to be... reorganizing."
"Reorganizing how?" Scholar Osanna moved closer to Ashley's bed, but didn't touch. They'd learned that physical contact triggered painful feedback.
"The damage patterns are forming new pathways. Instead of a single, focused ability to absorb harm for others, she appears to be developing something more... diffuse."
They were right—something was changing. The broken Covenant hadn't simply failed; it had fragmented into something new. Instead of drawing harm away from others, it now created zones where harmful effects seemed to... interfere with each other.
She'd discovered this accidentally during a particularly invasive examination. When Scholar Miren had attempted to probe her Essentia pathways with a diagnostic spell, the magic had simply... stopped. Not blocked, not deflected, but cancelled out by competing energies that shouldn't exist.
"We should document these changes," Hadwin continued. "If she's developing natural interference abilities, it could revolutionize our understanding of Covenant adaptation."
"Or it could be a sign of deeper instability," Osanna countered. "Interference effects are typically associated with—"
"With what?" Hadwin's voice sharpened with interest.
"With souls that don't properly belong in their vessels."
Ashley's eyes snapped open.
Both scholars turned toward her, their expressions shifting from clinical interest to something approaching excitement. The way a child might look at a new toy.
"Ah, you're awake," Hadwin said pleasantly. "Excellent timing. We were just discussing your remarkable recovery."
"Recovery." Ashley's voice came out as a croak.
"Your Covenant is adapting in ways we've never documented," Osanna explained, pulling out a crystal tablet to record notes. "The interference patterns suggest your soul is... how to put this delicately... not entirely harmonious with your current physical form."
"What does that mean?"
"It means," Hadwin said with scholarly enthusiasm, "that you may be the first recorded case of successful soul displacement with partial integration. Fascinating stuff, really. We'll need to run extensive tests to understand the full implications."
Soul displacement. Partial integration.
They knew. They knew what had happened to them, and they were treating it like an academic curiosity rather than a violation of everything that made her human.
"I want to see Thornslayer," Ashley said carefully.
"In time," Osanna replied absently. "First, we need to understand what you've become."
What she'd become. Not who she was. What.
Ashley closed her eyes and reached inward, feeling for the broken pathways of her Covenant. The fractures pulsed with alien energy, but beneath that corruption, she sensed something else. The interference wasn't random—it was protective. Her shattered ability was trying to shield her from detection, from analysis, from the hostile attention of forces that viewed her as a specimen rather than a person.
She let the interference flow outward, just a little. Just enough to make the scholars' next round of tests produce inconclusive results.
If they wanted to study what she'd become, they'd have to work for it.
===
Margaret moved through the temple library's restricted section with the confidence of someone who belonged there. Her healer's robes and carefully cultivated reputation as a dedicated apprentice opened doors that remained closed to others.
The records she sought weren't in the main collection—those had been sanitized, edited, reduced to the kind of safe historical narrative that revealed nothing useful. But academic institutions were terrible at destroying information completely. There were always backup copies, forgotten duplicates, misfiled documents that escaped the censors' attention.
She found what she was looking for in a collection of medical logs from five years past, filed under "Routine Treatments" rather than anything that might suggest importance.
Patient: Lady Elara Flameheart, aged 34
Condition: Cascade Failure
Symptoms: Uncontrolled energy discharge, temporal distortion, reality fluctuation
Treatment: Stabilization protocols, containment measures
Outcome: Deceased
Margaret's hands trembled as she read the clinical description of a woman's death. But it was the next entry that stole the warmth from her limbs.
Date: Same day as Lady Elara's death
Procedure: Emergency Containment Ritual
Subject: [REDACTED] - Female, age 14
Condition: Uncontrolled manifestation following traumatic loss
Notes: Standard three-wish protocols insufficient. Subject's consciousness partially displaced during emergency stabilization. Containment successful but incomplete integration achieved.
Recommendation: Continued monitoring. Subject may require additional procedures if displacement symptoms manifest.
Margaret read the entry three times before its full implications sank in. The ritual hadn't been performed on the dying mother. It had been performed on the daughter.
Lady Selene—the original Lady Selene—had experienced some kind of crisis when her mother died. The temple's response had been to perform a "Containment Ritual" that had partially displaced her consciousness.
Partially displaced. Not completely. Which meant...
"Finding everything you need, Margot?"
Margaret flinched, her heart seizing in her chest. Brother Aldwin stood there, framed by the archway. His face was a mask of pleasant neutrality, yet his stillness was that of a predator that had been watching for some time.
"Just researching historical healing techniques," she said, forcing her voice to remain steady. "For Sister Miren's patient with the Covenant damage."
"Ah yes, the fascinating case from the north." Aldwin stepped into the reading chamber, his presence suddenly much more intimidating than his mild manner suggested. "Strange how these old records sometimes provide insight into new problems."
"Strange how problems repeat themselves across generations," Margaret agreed.
"Indeed. Though sometimes the solutions change, even when the problems remain the same." Aldwin's eyes fixed on the medical log in her hands. "That particular case study makes for interesting reading, doesn't it?"
Margaret felt the walls closing in around her. "I should return to my duties."
"Of course. Though you might find it worthwhile to research the follow-up procedures as well. Containment is rarely a permanent solution—it simply... delays the inevitable resolution."
He stepped aside to let her pass, but his words followed her out of the library like a curse.
Delays the inevitable resolution.
Whatever had been done to the original Lady Selene five years ago, it wasn't finished. And if Margaret was right about the pattern, then Calypso—all of them—were part of some larger plan that had been set in motion long before they'd ever fallen through that gate.
The question was whether they were the solution to an old problem, or simply the next phase of an ongoing experiment.